The Dream Lover (26 page)

I hesitated, then said, “I think not. Not just yet.”

Sainte-Beuve scowled. “So the rumors are true.”

I looked sharply over at him. “What rumors now?”

“That you are in love with the critic Gustave Planche.”

“Don't tell me—”

“It must be true. I heard it from Balzac. He insists that it is true.”

“Balzac would insist that the earth was flat if he thought it would hurt me. He has gone from being a dear friend to a bitter enemy, all on account of my break with Jules.”

“He has taken Jules in to champion him.”

“So I have heard.”

“It appears not to be going as smoothly as Balzac thought it might. Jules has a bit of a problem with laziness?”

I looked at my pocket watch. I would not indulge in gossip about someone I once loved so dearly. But it was true that Jules was lazy. I doubted Balzac would tolerate him much longer.

“I know you want to go,” Sainte-Beuve said. “I shall release you if you promise me one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Finish
Lélia
!”

“I shall.” Finally, I smiled.

I resumed working that night with new determination. And as I wrote, I saw how the book was a philosophical undertaking to try to use the mind to bring peace to the heart, and to construct a morality that one could reconcile oneself to. I used aspects of Marie for the character of an actress, Pulchérie, who had become a courtesan in order to support her need for luxury; I put parts of myself in the character who is her sister Lélia, one who refuses to give up her independence for any man. Just before I stopped working for the night, I added a scene of Pulchérie talking to Lélia:

“Oh, my sister, how beautiful you were. I had never found you so before that day. I had preferred myself to you. I had felt that my brilliant cheeks, my rounded shoulders and my golden hair made me more beautiful than you. But at that instant I awakened to the beauty of another creature. I no longer loved only myself. I rose softly and looked at you with singular curiosity and a strange pleasure. Your thick, black hair clung to your face, and the close curls tightened as if a feeling of life had clenched them next to your neck, which was velvet with shadow and sweat. I passed my fingers through your hair. It seemed to squeeze and draw me toward you. Your fine, white blouse pressed against your breasts made your skin, tanned by the sun, still darker than usual. And your long eyelashes, weighted with sleep, stood out against your cheeks. Oh, Lélia, you were so beautiful! Trembling, I kissed your arm. Then you opened your eyes and your gaze penetrated me with shame. I turned away as if I had committed a guilty action. Don't you remember my confusion and my blushing?”

“I even remember something you said,” replied Lélia. “You made me lean over the water, and you said, ‘Look at yourself. See how beautiful you are.' I replied that I was less so than you. ‘Oh, but you are much more beautiful,' you said. ‘You look like a man.' ”

I held the quill in my hand, motionless, after I wrote these words, and read them again. Then I blew out the candle and went to sleep.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, I awakened at around two in the afternoon. I had coffee, forced myself to eat a bit of fruit and bread, and then went shopping for flowers. At Nohant, nature surrounded and cheered me; in Paris, I had to buy pieces of it to bring it inside.

After I selected the pink and white peonies I wanted, I set out
for home. It had rained furiously the night before; around three
A.M
., while I'd sat writing, I had feared that the windows would give way to the force of the storm. Now, although the rain had stopped, the streets were rivers of mud. Carriage wheels got stuck, and while hack drivers tried to urge the horses on, prostitutes approached the men who were riding inside. When they were refused, they only laughed gaily and moved on to the next carriage.
I could learn from them
, I thought.

I walked past Jovin's, which sold gloves, and stared into the window. I went into the store, harboring a fool's hope that I might find Marie there. Of course she was not inside. Instead, when the bell tinkled merrily, there appeared a pretty young shopgirl whose eyes, with their dreamy gaze, told me she was elsewhere—with her lover, I supposed. In love, your joy is offered to the world and your happiness is reflected back to you; in pain, you suffer alone. Though I held my shoulders back and my head high when I walked into the street again, I felt as though I were cramped into myself, my head tucked between my shoulders, trying to find shelter when there was none to be found. Only one other time in my life had I been this desperate for something to lift me from what was to what might be—which is to say, to leave behind despair for hope.

April 1822

BRIE

O
ne day, saying that the fresh air would do us good, my mother brought me to a large villa in the country. It belonged to Monsieur James and Madame Angèle du Plessis, a couple we had recently met at a dinner party and who had invited us to visit them. Restless as always away from the city, my mother left after one day, but she told me to stay longer—the gracious hosts were more than amenable—and she would come to collect me after a week. In fact, she did not take me home for nearly five months, but that was for reasons of my own as well as hers.

It turned out that our hosts were well aware of my family history—James had been acquainted with my father in the army—and on meeting me, he had taken pity on my sorry state. At the dinner party, he had seen me stare into my lap when my mother spoke of my grandmother, criticizing her in her usual sardonic way. But it was hearing me say that I dearly missed living in the country that had prompted him to speak with his wife about inviting my mother and me to their home.

Angèle, a most maternal, kind, and caring person, was glad to have me join their brood: they had five children, all girls younger than my seventeen years, and their household was chaotic but full of cheer. She wrote to my mother asking permission for me to have an extended stay, and my mother agreed, saying she had no objection at all, that it would be a relief to be away from what she described as my constant state of melancholia—never mind that it was she who was most responsible for it. She told James she was weary of trying to get me married off, for, despite the grim prediction of my father's family, I had received several proposals, all of which I'd refused with as much grace as I could muster. For his part,
James said that it appeared that I was the kind of person who would need to choose for herself, and what was the harm in that?

Even after many years, James was very much in love with his wife; and he told my mother that he could understand perfectly well my not wanting to be attached for life to someone I did not know or had not even met. Surely my mother would agree that there was no romance in a marriage arranged solely as a business transaction, and surely she, who had loved her husband so dearly, could not begrudge my yearning for romantic love as well. Given my mother's history with my father, she could not make much of an argument against that.

And so the du Plessis family all but adopted me, and Angèle and James acted so much the part of my parents that I began calling them mother and father. For their part, they referred to me and treated me as their daughter. Angèle bought me new clothes and shoes; and she enjoyed doing it as much as I enjoyed being the beneficiary of such largesse.

I was granted other benefits that I very much appreciated: I was able to use the library and read whatever and as much as I wanted. But eventually I found that I wanted to leave behind the world of the mind and
thinking
for a while. I spent hours walking in the nearby park, where I found acres of tall, mature trees, their wide trunks begging an embrace, their deep grooves suggesting secrets folded therein. There were, as well, willow trees dipping their branches into what looked like mirrored, depthless ponds, deer slicing through shrubbery on their way toward hidden glades, and wildflowers blushing in the grass. In that man-made park was the deep green fecundity of a forest in the wild, and I loved it. I went for glorious rides on fine horses, rekindled my interest in music, gained weight, and finally slept well.

My mother would visit me at Le Plessis occasionally and ask me in confidence if I wanted to stay; and the stiffness in her manner let me know what she was hoping I would say. Each time, I would assure
her that I did want to stay. It was hard to say who was more pleased at this.

Staying with the du Plessis family reawakened both the childish and the maternal instincts in myself. I found myself running in the fields and actively playing with the family's children; but I also helped to settle them down when they were too rowdy, when they were hurt, when they were in need of a kind of singling out for the devoted attention that every child occasionally needs. It is not inaccurate to say that I came to the du Plessis household craving death, if not in fact near to it; and they nursed me back to health with a steady, selfless love. They were also responsible for my finding my husband, in a rather unusual way.

I had been to a mime drama with my chosen parents, and we had gone to Tartoni's for lemon ices afterward. Angèle spotted someone across the room and asked James, “Is that not Casimir?”

“I believe it is!” James waved the fellow over. He was a slender, aristocratic-looking young man—he had that air of casual elegance associated with good breeding and a privileged life. He had, as well, the stirring, overly correct posture of the military, and there was in his face a kind of merriment; these things reminded me of my father.

“My dear Monsieur Dudevant!” James said. “Tell me, how is your father?”

Casimir gave them news about his father, a colonel who was apparently very much beloved by the family du Plessis. He then sat close to my adopted mother and whispered something in her ear.

“That one?” Angèle asked. “Oh, she is only my new daughter.” She spoke loudly, with mischief in her eyes.

“Your daughter!” Casimir said. “Then she is my wife, as well! You must recall that you promised me your oldest daughter's hand, but this one is far more suited to me by age. And so thank you very much indeed; I shall accept her in Wilfrid's place.”

We all laughed, but inside I could feel a small flame ignite. All
the misgivings I had expressed about marriage aside, I wondered if I might perhaps be ready after all—in a couple of months I would turn eighteen. Perhaps it was time.

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, I heard Casimir's voice floating upstairs to where I was in bed, awake but lying idle. I leapt up and performed a hasty toilette, then made my way downstairs.

He smiled upon seeing me and offered a courtly bow. “I see my wife has arisen,” he said.

“And what has my husband to report that will make my having left a cozy nest worthwhile?”

Such playful banter soon gave way to our running outside with the du Plessis children. Casimir demonstrated a wonderful sense of playfulness that day, which he exhibited without any self-consciousness or apparent aim, and I liked this about him. I felt that he was not in any way courting me but, rather, was simply being himself.

After more time together, my view of him changed from what it had been at that first meeting, when my romantic fancy had taken flight. I now regarded him in the calmest, most pleasant of ways, as a friend and confidant; and I felt sure he looked upon me the same way. Nonetheless, we continued to call each other “husband” and “wife”; it was simply an extension of that original lightheartedness we'd enjoyed upon our first meeting, nothing more.

Still, people thrust their fantasies upon us and, in one way or another, urged matrimony. Finally, one day I took James aside and said, “I am afraid our little joke must come to an end. I admit that I was at first intrigued by the idea of marrying a man like Casimir, but we have developed a friendship that can never be anything but that. I must ask you to help me put an end to the rumors that suggest otherwise. Anyway, someone told me that his inheritance will be great; there would be no reason for him to marry someone like me.”

But James told me I was mistaken in this last. “While it is true that the colonel is very wealthy, Casimir will not inherit all that wealth. Half of the fortune belongs to the colonel's wife. Of the colonel's own half, part is from his pension, which his son will not be given. What is left, Casimir will indeed inherit, but it is less than what your fortune will be. So he would, in fact, do well to marry you, when you look at it that way.”

He paused, then went on: “But, Aurore, I think we both agree that there is more to look at than this. My advice to you is to do as you please when it comes to marriage and Casimir. But keep in mind that you could do far worse. You two do seem to enjoy each other a great deal.”

Not long afterward, Casimir proposed. There was nothing very romantic in it. It amounted to him saying that he wanted to ask me first if I would consider marrying him; if so, he would have his father take it up with my mother. This was the reverse order of what was usually done, but I liked the notion of him leaving it solely up to me. He told me to take a few days to think about it—or, for that matter, as long as I needed. If I found the idea of him as a husband not repugnant (and this he said in such a way as to make us both laugh), then I could let him know, and he would set things in motion.

“I will think about it,” I said.

That evening after I retired, I lay awake in bed, wondering if I should accept him. It meant a great deal to me that James and Angèle liked him and his family so much. It was good that I could be relaxed around Casimir, and, on further thought, I realized that I had come to regard him as my best friend. He had not said he loved me, but I felt this not as a slight to me but, rather, proof of a rare kind of honesty.